Tuesday, October 31, 2006

In light of the absurdity of claims that assaults like the Simchat Torah attack on Menachem Vorcheimer are related to Israeli policy or the defence of its citizens against would be mass murderers in the Middle East, here's a thought provoking article from Adam Garfinkle of The American Interest Online THE MADNESS OF JEWCENTRICITY. I'd be interested in your comments.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Six years ago, Sydney's southern suburbs were the location of a string of gang-rapes in which teenage girls were threatened at gunpoint and then beaten and degraded by assailants from Lebanese Muslim backgrounds. The young women were called "sluts" and "Aussie pigs" and subjected to dehumanising torture. When the perpetrators were sent to trial, most showed no remorse, their families intimidated the victim witnesses, some of who were spat upon and abused in the courtroom.

Leading Muslims were critical of the behaviour of the accused and correctly pointed out that the great bulk of their community were law abiding and should not be smeared by their association with rapists. Keysar Trad, then vice-president of the Lebanese Muslim Association, said it was "rather unfair" that the rapists' ethnicity had been reported "because these boys themselves have completely disaffiliated themselves from their culture or their religion".

This week Australia's most senior Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali endorsed the concept of blaming the victim in a sermon suggesting that immodestly dressed women are the cause of violent attacks such as the infamous Sydney gang rapes - MUSLIM LEADER BLAMES WOMEN FOR SEX ATTACKS. Strangely, his spokesperson Trad is one of his very few supporters.

Hilali's sermon brought condemnation from many sectors of society including the Muslim community. The Mufti apologised in his own feeble way explaining it all away as a case of being taken out of context. He was misunderstood. The same Hilali has been "misunderstood" in the past; he supports Hizbullah and Hamas, is an apologist for 9/11 and is an anti Semite. Understanably, he has a proclivity for being offensive to those with whose views he disagrees.

On the same low level in the human chain is British Muslim Cleric Arshad Misbahi of the Manchester Central Mosque who thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified IT'S OK TO KILL GAYS - BRITISH IMAM.

Local gay rights activist Peter Tatchell counters the Imam by saying, "It is disturbing that some British imams are endorsing the execution of gay and lesbian Muslims.

"Imam Arshad Misbahi's homophobic attitudes give comfort and succor to queer-bashers. They encourage conflict and disharmony between Manchester's large gay and Muslim communities."

Both Hilali and Misbahi enjoy turning the victims of disturbing crimes into the aggressors; dangers to their ordered view of society. This inversion of victim/perpetrator is both disturbing and unacceptable in our society and they are both being told in no uncertain terms that this is the case.

In much the same way, author Antony Loewenstein whose anti Zionist rant was recently published by Melbourne University Press under the title "My Israel Question", has sought to explain that the victim of a anti-Semitic hate assault was bashed because of "Israeli actions in Israel and Palestine and more recently Lebanon."

The factually challenged Loewenstein, who has no proof whatsoever as to what, if anything, was going through the brains of the drink addled thugs who beat up on Menachem Vorcheimer as he was walking through the streets of suburban Caulfield with his two young children, gleefully associated the attack on Israeli policy in a recent Geelong Advertiser article.

Loewenstein demonstrated he is not only factually challenged but also extremely confused because he told the newspaper that …"For the Jewish community to say there's a wave of anti-Semitism occurring is nonsense, it's just not true".

On the other hand, he claimed to understand that the cause of this non-existent wave of anti Semitism was Israel’s "illegal occupation". Of course, Loewenstein hasn't the slightest clue as to whether any of the hoodlums who attacked Vorcheimer held any views about Israel because the only comments attributed to them were "go Nazis". To that extent, the likelihood is that this particular attack had nothing to do with "Palestinians", "Lebanese" or "illegal occupation" as Loewenstein claimed while playing his insidious game of “blame the victim” with the Geelong Advertiser.

That's because Loewenstein, the current pin up boy of Australia's ultra right wing Jew hating Australian League of Rights, is himself obsessed with the Jews. In his little world, Jews are all fair game in Australia because they have a connection with other Jews in another part of the world called Israel.

That's the country whose citizens are under attack from madmen like Hassan Nasrallah who indiscriminately fires rockets and missiles at them or from Hamas and other would be mass murderers who send suicide bombers and others to attack Israeli civilians in their homes, on busses and in restaurants.

For that, Loewenstein wants to tell the world that Menachem Vorcheimer was viciously attacked in front of his two children while walking down a Melbourne suburban street on Simchat Torah.

At least the Geelong Advertiser wasn't fooled by Loewenstein's false claims. A photograph accompanying its article "BATTLING THE RISE OF ANTI-SEMITIC TIDE" [no link currently available] showed anti-Semitic graffiti in Melbourne containing the words "Victory of Islam. Death for Jew + ..."

The reality is that just as Hilali and Misbahi make poor attempts to explain misogyny and homophobia, Loewenstein does likewise with the actions of drunken anti Semitic thugs. They are all birds of a feather and their rantings should not be tolerated.

Friday, October 27, 2006

"The head of news at the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has been accused of acting arbitrarily in unofficially blacklisting eight journalists and commentators. Among the banned journalists is Israel-based freelancer Paula Slier, a Jerusalem Post contributor, who has been barred from reporting because she is a Jew."

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Senator Michael Ronaldson's concerns about the lack of partiality in Australia's multicultural TV network SBS of Hizbullah's war on Israel are to be raised at next week's Senate estimates hearing in Parliament.

This has provided Sonja Karkar of Australians for Palestine with some concerns of her own. Her 475 word letter is generously given prominence in today's Melbourne Age under the banner What don't they want us to know about Israel?

Ms. Karkar uses that generous allotment of space to tell us exactly what SBS has been telling us about Israel and Lebanon and Israel and the Palestinians without enumerating the multitude of things that it hasn't been revealing to its viewers.

Indeed, SBS operates its reporting on the Middle East in much the same way as does the Age. That is, it tends to shun many of the facets of these ongoing conflicts where the news is not so favourable to the Arab side. And when SBS and the Age aren't hiding certain important aspects of the news from the region they're often putting their own biased slant on them. That's exactly what Sen. Richardson is saying.

Ask yourself for example, when was the last time you saw an item on SBS or read in the Age about the incitement to hatred within PA television controlled by President Mahmoud Abbas who much of the media seek to paint as a "moderate" among Palestinian leaders? Do you recall them ever telling us in any detail about the genocidal, anti-Semitic contents of the Hamas Charter or the racist rantings of Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah?

Senator Ronaldson is seeking to address bias on SBS and for both sides of the argument to be heard.

Sonja Karkar's letter is a plea for the existing bias to be endorsed and to become an intinsic part of SBS editorial policy. This goes against this taxpayer funded organisation's charter and should not be permitted under any circumstances.

FOOTNOTE: Good luck to you if you want to send a response to Karkar's letter to the Age. This is what you have to do and please note what the Age says about the ideal size of your letter.

Send your letters to:letters@theage.com.au Fax: +61 (0)3 96012414Snailmail: 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne 3000 All letters and email (no attachments) to The Age must carry the sender's home address and day and evening phone numbers for verification. Letter writers who would like receipt of their letters acknowledged should send a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Ideally, letters will be a maximum of 200 words.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Since well before Oslo it has been accepted that peace between Israel and Palestine is dependent on many things but the mutual recognition of each partys' right to exist and an end to incitement and violence are of paramount importance if peace is to be achieved.

The election of Hamas earlier this year was a major blow to the hopes of those who dream of peace in the region but some commentators still maintain that the road to peace can be achieved by way of dealing with Mahmoud Abbas who heads the Fatah party and who retains the PA Presidency.

It is in this capacity that Abbas runs Palestine Authority TV. Here's an item from Palestine Media Watch on political, hate and violence messages directed at Israel that is aired on PA TV's educational programmes. If you follow to the end of the story, you'll find some Abbas double talk on what the recognition of Israel means. Further down the page, there's the PA's take on the Pope and how Allah will punish him for his speech about Islam and below that, the story of the return of PA TV's big hit music video depicting a Shahid (Martyr for Allah) being rewarded by marrying the Dark Eyed Maidens (Virgins) of Paradise.

All very intriguing but not all that promising for those who want to see peace in the region in the near future!

Monday, October 23, 2006

This one from Shane McCartin of North Fitzroy appeared in today's Melbourne Age:-

Time for a rethink on Israel, too

NOW that Bush, Blair and Howard are finally expressing doubts about their frolic in Iraq, have they got the honesty to re-evaluate their other Middle East policies? Will they rethink their support for Israel's ongoing destruction of Palestinian civil society and the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations of statehood?

Israel's war against the Palestinians is just as illegitimate as the invasion of Iraq. Both wars are based on lies and deceptions. They both masquerade as wars against terror when, in reality, they are just old-fashioned, outdated, greedy colonial enterprises.

Shane McCartin, North Fitzroy

McCartin believes that Israel's war against the Palestinians is "illegitimate". But if only he could persuade the Palestinians to lay down their arms and come to the negotiating table as they have promised time and again in internationally sponsored agreeements, then perhaps the Israelis might have no need to defend themselves against armed terrorists who explode themselves is buses, schools and restaurants, who fire rockets at civilian targets and who attack unarmed men, women and children. In that event, there might be no "war" for him to write letters about at all.

McCartin is no match however, for Sydneysider Herbert Freilich when it comes to sheer stupidity. This appeared in last Friday's edition of the Australian Jewish News:-

No room for abuse

ONE may or may not agree with the viewpoints expressed by Professor Tanya Reinhart (AJN 13/10), but surely the only proper response should be a rationally-expressed counter-viewpoint – not abuse as illustrated by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission’s retort about her “outrageous and extreme comments regarding Israel” being “counterproductive to achieving a realistic solution to the conflict”.

The viewpoints Professor Reinhart expressed are not new. They are widely held by people throughout the world, by many Israelis and by many Jews in the Diaspora.

Many of the latter, not wishing to offend and risk abuse from their Jewish colleagues, are reluctant to speak out.

We Jews, including those in Israel, are not reproducing ourselves and should face the reality of decreasing numbers of children per generation, a decrease that is already occurring.

By contrast, the Palestinians and the Arab world in general are increasing exponentially per generation.

A demographic clock is ticking. Time is not on Israel’s side. A hostile population cannot be pacified indefinitely by military means. They only increase the hostility. Peace with the Palestinians and with the Arab world is essential for Israel’s long-or even medium-term future. From my reading, this is what Professor Reinhart was saying.

Herbert Freilich Sydney, NSW

Herbert, you're not a very good reader. If you were, you would acknowledge that most Jews, including the good people at B'nai Brith are very conscious of the demography issue and the need for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours. The majority of Israelis support peace with their Palestinian neighbours and earlier this year voted in a government whose policy was to withdraw from Palestinian territories preferably by negotiation but if not, unilaterally. At around about the same time, the Palestinians elected a government that doesn't even recognise Israel's right to exist.

Moreover Herbert, the words you attribute to B'nai Brith are reasonably mild as far as my abuse meter is concerned; far less abusive than the muck which Ms. Reinhardt throws at her fellow Israelis who she accuses of "ethnically cleansing" the Palestinians.

Now here is where Herbert really excells himself in the stupidity department. My undertsanding is that in every instance of "ethnic cleansing" known to mankind, the population of the group of people being ethnically cleansed diminishes dramatically. Not so the Palestinians according to Herbert.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Palestine's Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar has confirmed that his Minstry's policy is to establish a Palestinian state in place of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and that the Jewish State is an 'abomination' which Hamas will never recognize.

"If we can form a state within the 1967 borders we will do so, but this doesn't mean that we will relinquish our right to every centimeter of Palestine's land," he told a rally in Gaza on Friday.

Among the key requirements which the Road Map to Peace in the Middle East (sponsored by the quartet of international mediators including the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia) places on the Palestinians is the recognition of Israel, the denunciation of violence against it and the acceptance of all existing agreements between Israel and the Palestine Authority.

Now, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that it is unrealistic for the international community to expect the Hamas government to fully accept the quartet's conditions at present, and that the Palestinian movement should be given more time to honour them.

In other words, the Russians are prepared to give Hamas and the other Palestinian armed groups a free rein for the time being to build up their weaponry, to continue their murderous attacks on Israelis including the daily firing of quassam missiles into Israeli towns and to maintain the constant stream of incitement and the call to "kill Jews everywhere" in the PA's official media.

But how much time does the word "never" as used by the Palestinian Foreign Minister encompass?

If nothing else, the comments of his Russian counterpart prove that Russian civilization has moved very slowly since the time when starting a pogrom against the Jews was the national sport.

And with the encouragement of the Russians, it's likely that the Palestinian advance from their current parlous situation will move at a similar pace.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

What happened to the greenhouses originally built by Israeli settlers and gifted by Western businessmen to the Palestinian people when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza last year?

The greenhouses once produced a variety of fruit and vegetables and provided employment for Palestinian labourers but twelve months is a long time in the history of terrorism.

The greenhouses have now been converted by enterprising armed thus into conduits for the importation of weapons into Gaza for use against Israeli civilians in parts of Israel that were never occupied territory.

Thus, Gaza will become a war zone and it's peoples' suffering will continue.

Why, you ask?

Don't bother consulting the Melbourne Age if you want the answer. It won't even put you in the picture because it only tells its readers what it wants them to read.

Friday, October 20, 2006

According to Human Rights Watch, Hizbullah used cluster bombs during its war on Israel this northern summer [REPORT:HIZBULLAH USED CLUSTER BOMBS]. The report comes months after HRW's condemnation of the use by Israel of the same weapon in much large quantities and follows visits by the human rights organisation to the Israeli Druse village of Mughar "whose family members - civilians - were wounded by Hizbullah's cluster bombing."

Apparently, HRW made no comment on the fact that while the Israeli bombing targetted enemy combatants in the course of prosecuting a war, the targets of the Hizbullah bombing attacks, whether by cluster bombing, the use of sophisticated missiles supplied by Iran and Syria or by katyushas loaded with lethal ball bearings were exclusively civilian - and emanated maily from civilian areas.

And of course, the Melbourne Age which has been right on top of the cluster bomb story until now, has ignored the report altogether.

The doctors in question provide descriptions of symptoms and make their diagnoses without a shred of evidence to support their outlandish claims. There's no indication whether scientific tests were undertaken to substantiate their conclusions but if the evidence existed, why did the doctors not produce it to human rights groups or to the reporter?

One of the doctors identified is Saied Jouda who just happens to be the deputy director of Kamal Odwan Hospital, the very same hospital where victims of the infamous Gaza Beach tragedy were taken earlier this year after the unfortunate explosion that was initially and wrongly blamed on Israeli shelling. There were questions raised about hospital procedure and recording at the time. Today's article has done nothing to dispel my doubts about the hospital's credibility and the competence of its staff.

The lack of evidence points to the whole story being another link in the endless chain of concoctions that form part of a carefully orchestrated anti Israel media campaign emanating from this part of the world. That campaign, based on lies and misinformation, in its present form stretches back from the opening days of the current conflict in 2000 with the death of Mohammed al Dura, to the infamous false allegations of a "massacre" in Jenin, to the above mentioned Gaza Beach "beat up". A similar monstrous and well documented campaign of deception was waged against Israel during the recent Lebanon war.

True to form, the Age didn't bother to include a rebuttal from the Israelis but the longer Guardian article at least allows them this courtersy. It quotes the IDF as denying the story and adding that the..."defence establishment is investing considerable effort to develop weaponry in order to minimise the risk of injury to innocent civilians." Professor Isaac Ben-Israel, a retired Israel air force general who was involved in weapons development said he believed the wounds came "from ordinary explosives".

An International Red Cross representative said his organisation was investigating and, although this is not reported anywhere, it should be added that the intervention of aliens from another galaxy hasn't yet been ruled out either!

An almost identical charge was levelled against Israel during the recent conflict in Lebanon but subsequent independent German tests found them to be false. This report from YOUTUBE is somewhat dramatic but it demonstrates the absurdity of the claim.

The question remains as to why the Age adopts such an unbalanced stance in its reporting of news from the region.

Why does the Age highlight people like Carmen Callil, Tony Judt and the execrable Antony Loewenstein when fatuous claims are made about the suppression of their free speech rights and then ignores the plight of Bangladeshi editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury (see here)?

Why are stories such as this one about the discovery of weapons smuggling tunnels in Gaza routinely ignored?

And closer to home, many are asking why has the Age shunned the story of a Jewish man* walking with his two children on the sabbath who was visciously assaulted by drunken louts coming home from the races?

It was a talking point in the city's major tabloid and on radio talk back for days this week but the Age preferred to leave the story on the blank pages while publishing dubious stories that, in all likelihood, originated inside Hamas' media machine and amount to nothing more than blatant propaganda.

POSTSCRIPT: * Since publishing the above, I have been informed that the Age did in fact, cover the story, albeit very briefly, in its on-line section but managed to get the victim's name wrong.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Ghazi Hamad is a spokesperson for the Hamas-led Palestinian government. This week, the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam published an article he wrote in which he condemned the internal violence enveloping Palestinian society today.

Hamad questioned whether this violence has become a "Palestinian disease". His comments were quoted in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper - HAMAS SPOKESMAN QUESTIONS IF VIOLENCE IS PALESTINIAN 'DISEASE' and included the question whether violence "has become a culture implanted in our bodies and our flesh?" He concluded that his people had surrendered to violence to such an extent that it has smothered Palestinian society whole.

My reading of the article brought to mind the comments of an Australian author of Lebanese descent, Carmen Callil in a paragraph of the postscript to her new book, Bad Faith, about a Vichy official Louis Darquier, who arranged the deportation of thousands of Jews during the Second World War.

Callil claims she grew anxious while researching the "helpless terror of the Jews of France" to see "what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people. Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians. Everyone forgets."

Given what Hamad says about violence in Palestinan culture, must we be forced to endure such claptrap?

The London Guardian and Melbourne Age apparently believe that we must.

Last week the Age reproduced this piece of drivel from the Guardian's Ed Pilkington [AUTHOR SHUNNED FOR ISRAEL CRITICISM] reporting on the controversy arising from the cancellation by the French Embassy of a party in Ms. Callil's honour when the above paragraph was brought to its attention.

Pilkington claims that the cancellation caused a storm over the issue of "freedom of speech” suggesting there are forces at work out to douse criticism of the modern state of Israel. He also cites the cancellation of a forthcoming talk by Jewish author Tony Judt by the Polish Embassy after apparent pressure from the "pro-Israel lobby".

The claim is made that the issue in both instances is a simple one - the supressing of criticism of Israel. However, Judt is not just a critic of Israel. According to a paper published in 2003, he called for the dismantling of Jewish state dismantled and its replacement by a one-state solution as the method of resolving its conflict with the Palestinians. His solution involved the Jews of Israel putting their faith in the "international community" to ensure their safety in the event that others who might be suffering from a "culture of violence" harboured any sinister designs on them.

To the extent that this matter is a dispute about freedom of speech I agree with New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier who disagrees with Judt's opinions but agrees that he "has every right to express his contemptible views."

The same applies to the obnoxious comments made by Ms. Callil. She's free to publish her book, to make hateful and untruthful comments about what the Jews are doing to defend themselves from what Mr. Hamad calls "a culture of violence" and even to make the ludicrous suggestion that the Palestinians are "forgotten" by the world.

But this is not about freedom of speech or the freedom of people to criticise Israel. That sort of thing and more, goes on daily in the pages of the Guardian and the Age.

No, this is about something entirely different. It's about the right of people not to accept or tolerate deception.

I don't always agree with the French but their New York Embassy has every right to disassociate itself from sentiments that are deeply offensive. Ms. Callil's statement is more than just contemptible: it demonstrates a total avoidance of reality. To invoke the Holocaust and to make the comparison between the genocide perpetrated on European Jewry as a parallel to the unfortunate situation of the Palestinians is an ugly and obscene misrepresentation.

Callil compounds this obscenity with a further lie by claiming that "…like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians. Everyone forgets."

Callil expects us to believe that the Palestinians have been forgotten by everyone and the Guardian and the Melbourne Age expect their readers to swallow this garbage?

Come now!

I googled "Guardian" and "Palestine" and came up with 4,240,000 entries in 0.07 seconds. It took a fraction longer than that to uncover 742,000 entries for the Melbourne Age. If that's what we call "forgetting" then what does "remembering" mean?

There must however, be some truth in the "forgotten" Palestinian angle.

Despite its almost daily coverage of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, much of which is devoted to items critical of Israel, the Melbourne Age continues to forget Palestinians like Ghazi Hamad.

This is most regrettable because the views he expressed about a Palestinian "culture of violence" might go some way to clarifying why their ongoing conflict with Israel has produced so much death and suffering on both sides.

There are other things that the Age "forgets" which might assist our understanding of the situation.

Forgotten are the daily attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilian communities by quasam rockets, by bombings, by gunfire, by knifings.

Forgotten is the current build up of tonnes of weaponry under the control of Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups.

Forgotten are the countless number of planned murderous attacks by Palestinians which are foiled by the Israeli Army, also on a daily basis.

Forgotten is the continued belligerence of Hamas' Khalid Mashaal who sits in Damascus and dictates the insane policy of the Palestinian government which refuses to recognise Israel and refuses to disarm the Palestinian terrorist groups as required by the international community under previously recognised peace agreements.

Forgotten is the fact that the international community that does nothing to enforce the disarming of Palestinian armed groups is the same "international community" which Tony Judt insists will safeguard the Jews in his utopian one state solution.

Forgotten are Palestinians like parliamentarian Maryam Farhat who sends her children off as suicide bombers and wishes that more of them would do the same.

There's another thing that the Guardian and the Melbourne Age seem to have forgotten in the context of Ms. Callil's postcript about the Jews, the Holocaust and the Palestinians. The only threats of genocide made in the context of the current conflict are those contained in the formal charters of the Palestinian armed groups and they are made against "Jews" (not "zionists" but "Jews"). Included among those that make such threats is the charter of Hamas, the party that was voted into power by the Palestinians earlier this year.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg but at least, for the benefit of Carmen Callil, it can truthfully be said that, the Melbourne Age has managed to forget some, if not all, Palestinians.

FOOTNOTE: I am informed that when asked in an interview on Israeli radio about violence against Jews, Hamad replied that he "approved of it". This comes from a moderate voice of the Hamas government who speaks of walking and sitting in peace and having "a dialogue in peace". However, he applies such concepts only to inter-Palestinian violence and he has no vision or desire to promote peaceful co-existence with his peoples' neighbours. Instead he is happy to consign his own people and their neighbours to many more years of "helpless terror".

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The People's Republic of China has recently taken some dramatic steps in support of its communist ally North Korea by commencing inspections of cargo trucks bound for its neighbour and also by stepping up the construction of an Apartheid Wall along the border between the two countries - CHINA INSPECTS NORTH KOREAN CARGO.

To suggest however, that the objective of this action is to enforce the new United Nations sanctions levelled against the North Koreans for their recent wonderful nuclear test is an Imperialist lie. This has nothing to do with that glorious achievement.

The action has been taken as a vehicle for keeping the revolutionary motivation and steadfastness of the zealous North Korean peasantry at the highest possible level.

A dialectic materialist analysis of history has shown us many times that such things as food and the material products which are so important to capitalism's running dogs are of no use to the Proletariat and only serves to soften them. Accordingly, it was resolved that it is in the interests of our North Korean brothers and sisters to prevent cargo from crossing the border.

Further, in order to enable these heroic peoples to truly understand the nature of oppression, the People's Republic has made the decision to construct a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along parts of its border with the North.

"Although the project was approved in 2003, the fence-building appears to have picked up since the test was announced. Scores of soldiers have descended on farmland near the border-marking Yalu River to erect concrete barriers 8 to 15 feet tall and string barbed wire between them, farmers and visitors to the area said."

The construction is most definitely an Apartheid Wall but it is there for no other reason than to remind our North Korean brothers in arms and all good people everywhere of a similar barrier built in another place.

The identification with this Apartheid Wall is necessary to enable them to clearly understand that the root cause of their miserable existence and that the true blame for all of their problems including their poverty, their hunger, the crime, drug addiction, the sexual assaults on their revolutionary sisters and the corruption in their society lies with the zionist entity.

Author Salman Rushdie explains why the conflict between Israel and Palestine is not the explanation or the "root cause" of Islamic terrorism in this article in the Independent:-

"If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming out of al-Qa'ida by one jot. It's not what they're after," he adds, his foot tapping against mine as he leans forward. "Yes, it's a recruiting tool, rhetorically. Many people see there's an injustice there, and it helps them to get people into the gang, but it's not what they want. What they want is to change the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban. If you want the whole earth to look like Taliban Afghanistan, then you’re on the same side as them. If you don't want that, you're not. They do not represent the quest for human justice. That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left.”

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Australian Ambassador Naftali Tamir has apparently put his foot in his mouth here.

The statements attributed to him have not yet been verified and there are indications he might have been misquoted. However, the report has already given some of Israel's enemies ammunition with which to move into attack mode, not just on the beleagured diplomat but against the Jewish State and its people.

The remarks attributed to Ambassador Tamir are unacceptable; it is grossly offensive to suggest that our country's engagement with Asia could in any way be based on race. If he has been correctly quoted, he should apologise and resign his post.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recalled Ambassador Tamir as part of its investigation into the matter and has made it clear its disassociation with the sentiments attributed to him. Further, it has indicated that if the statement was verified there would be no return to "business as usual".

We await the outcome of the investigation (expected on Thursday) with interest.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Sometimes the Melbourne Age chief cartoonist and icon in residence gets it right.

Today's cartoon is brilliant and insightful in that it highlights one of the major deficiencies in news reporting these days.

Leunig correctly exposes the reporting sin of deliberate omission, one that much of the media is guilty of committing from time to time - even his own paper, the Melbourne Age.

Especially when it comes to its coverage of the events of the ongoing conflict between Israel and her neighbours.

Hardly a day goes by without a negative or critical article about Israel in the Age. There is no other nation in the world that has every aspect of its conduct scrutinised as closely as does the Jewish State in this newspaper. Those who oppose it, including the more violent ones, are often depicted as victims and subject to suffering; the families of suicide bombers receive more sympathetic attention than the bombers who kill and maim innocent people.

Conversely, when internal violence between the different terrorist gangs in Gaza or the West Bank leads to a dozen deaths including those of innocent bystanders as it did last week, heads turn the other way. The violent death cults, the intimidation, the honour killings and the bombing of churches by armed Palestinian groups in these territories are barely on the radar of the Age newspaper.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Well, the Zionists get the blame for everything, including the slaughter of the innocents in Darfur by Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government, so why not North Korean nuclear testing?

Indeed, they might as well plead guilty now before the usual suspects at Counterpunch, Antiwar and assorted propaganda mouthpieces for the Palestinian terror networks and Hizbullah come up with the proof.

The Israelis don't feature that much although O'Loughlin does reveal that during the recent war "Israel targeted Hezbollah's strongholds in south Beirut and southern Lebanon".

Fancy hearing that from Ed!

I was under the impression from the way the Age covered the war two months ago that the Israelis were targetting the entire country. Now, he reveals that for the most part, they spared the places where the Christian, Sunni, Druse and people other than the Shi'ite Hezbollah live.

I guess that would be right given that the Christians, Sunnis, Druse and others didn't use their residential areas from which to launch their rockets at Israeli homes.

This might also explain why the Age reports that Sh'ite Marian Srour, 39, one of hundreds of villagers who returned to her home in South Lebanon after the ceasefire, has a problem with members of the Lebanese army serving "tea to the Israeli soldiers."

Heaven forbid that one side should see the other as human and deal with them as such!

Today's Age also covers the Australian tour of prominent left-wing Israeli academic and author Tanya Reinhart who has announced she plans to quit as emeritus professor at Tel Aviv University in protest against her Government's handling of the Palestinian issue.

What took her so long?

Reinhart has been around for ages promoting her particular narrative of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Her own take on the recent war in Lebanon initiated by Hassan Nasrallah is that Israel, which was the subject of an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah after it spent six years building up an arsenal of lethal missiles, wanted to "ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon."

Of course, that makes no sense whatever and even if it somehow did make sense, there's no evidence for the claim. Still, she's entitled to her views and has been freely pushing them for a long, long time from the ivory tower she inhabits inside the halls of academe in Tel Aviv. I have little doubt that there are some Age readers who want to believe these improbable scenarios and that some will even turn up to listen to her ramblings at the Carrillo Gantner Theatre tomorrow. After all, the show's for free!

For my part, I believe Reinhart is living proof of the healthy and robust democracy that the pioneers of the Jewish State developed in Israel where it's possible to be a vehement critic of the government and to support the other side - even when that side includes an "armed resistance" that often resorts to murder and terror against its civilians.

As for the Israeli solders who were sipping cups of tea with their Lebanese counterparts, I somehow doubt that they would have partaken in such pleasures if they also happened to be on enemy territory with the intention of committing an evil deed like ethnic cleansing. If that was really your aim, why on earth would you warn the other side by leaflets of impending attacks? And if my memory serves me well, the only threat of ethnic cleansing made during the conflict came not from the Israelis but from Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah and that was against the Jews specifically. However, as I said above, Reinhart rarely ever makes any sense.

To my mind, if the people of Palestine or Lebanon can't even have a cup of tea with the so-called "enemy" then perhaps the answers to the problems of the region rest not with the Jews but with the "other side" including those who might have taken leave of their senses and jumped ship.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad calls President Bush and tells him, "George, I had a wonderful dream last night. I could see America, the whole beautiful country, and on each house I saw a banner."

"What did it say on the banners?" Bush asks.

Ahmadinejad replies, "UNITED STATES OF IRAN."

Bush says, "You know, Mahmud, I am really happy you called, because believe it or not, last night I had a similar dream. I could see all of Tehran, and it was more beautiful than ever, and on each house flew an enormous banner."

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

They used to say the first casualty in war is the truth and that certainly was the case with the war between Hizbullah and Israel in Lebanon over July-August 2006.

Not only did we have to put up with the usual pack of lies from politicians and the warring parties, but we were also treated to a stunning array of fakery in the media ranging from doctored and staged photographs to news stories based on fraudulent accounts from so-called "eye witnesses" to dubious casualty figures which claimed, inter alia, that the fighting had claimed the lives of 1,000 Lebanese who, according to many reporters including Ed O'Loughlin of the Melbourne Age, were mostly "civilians".

Strangely enough, no figures were ever made available of Hizbullah deaths in action.

Of course, it's not always easy to differentiate between ordinary civilians and members of a civilian terrorist organisation who usually wear civilian clothes and operate within civilian areas turning those areas into battle fields when they use them as cover to fire at enemy civilian targets.

Still, the impression we got from the way the war was reported in the west was that, by some miracle, not a single Hizbullah fighter had succumbed in its glorious "victory" over Israel.

Well, finally an Hizbullah casualty has been uncovered.

According to Reuters, Radwan Saleh, a 35 year old American citizen and Hizbullah fighter, was buried yesterday in Lebanon after his body was discovered in the village of Maroun al-Ras.

That brings the unofficial Hizbullah death toll to exactly one.

Not a bad effort against the fifth strongest army in the world - that is assuming we believe what Hizbullah and its cheerleaders including some in the media are telling us is the truth.

[FOOTNOTE: My first thought when I saw the Reuters photograph of the goose stepping Hizbullah "militant" was that it might have been doctored. It's not - the picture is genuine!]

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Tension is mounting in the Gaza Strip as a Palestinian group threatens to kill prominent Hamas leaders and the power struggle between Fatah and the ruling Hamas movement escalates after two days of internal fighting in which 12 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded. Palestinian group threatens to kill Hamas leaders

Apparently some of the dead were civilian bystanders and all of the deaths will probably be attributed ultimately to the Israelis where they will wind up on the scoreboard of Palestinians killed since Yasser Arafat started hostilities in late September, 2000.

And if not the Israelis, it will be somebody else who will be blamed, but not the Palestinians who are doing the fighting themselves. They are lillywhite because they "suffer" like no other people on this earth do and this gives them special privileges when it comes to dealing with their own people and their neighbours.

Azzam Tamimi, is a Palestinian-born academic based in Britain, who advocates "martyrdom", calls Israel a "cancer in the body of humanity" and maintains that it should be "eradicated". He not only has been given a voice in Britain’s Guardian newspaper but also a headline containing the word "Peace".

That's about as close as you'll ever get to reading about a meaningful and peaceful resolution of this conflict from Azzam Tamimi whose advice is nothing more than a recipe for a civil war, further bloodshed and more squandered opportunities to reach true peace.

I'm sure we'll be reading and hearing more of the same from the apologists for Palestinian violence and from those who seek to demonise Israel rather than encourage Palestinian compliance with existing agreements which obligate them to fight terrorism, to arrest and disarm terrorists, put an end to the incitement and to accept Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

The international community recognises this as the best way to end the conflict and of course, to end the occupation of most of the land conquered by Israel in 1967. Unfortunately, the likes of Azzam Tamimi and the thugs who are slugging it out in Gaza and the West Bank don't get it yet!